Victim Of Ave. N Accident Is Grateful To Neighbors & EMS

Victim Of Ave. N Accident Is Grateful To Neighbors & EMS

Victim Of Ave. N Accident Is Grateful To Neighbors & EMS

Unsafe At Home The driver of the above car, which crashed into a house on Avenue N last Monday, although injured, said she is grateful to neighbors who helped get her out of the burning vehicle. See story on page 3. Charles Rogers

By Charles Rogers

Jolene Jackson of East 89th Street is used to helping people. She’s an official of the 69th Precinct Explorers and, as a result, works with Police Officers Jim Johnson and James Davis in helping the youths of the community. Turnabout being fair play, Jolene was grateful when neighbors helped her after a devastating accident last Monday.

According to a police report, Jolene was driving along Avenue N at about 10 a.m. when her car collided with another vehicle that was traveling south on East 95th Street.

Police said her 1996 Nissan spun around on the slick street, ran up on the sidewalk, blasted through a fence in front of 9511 Avenue N and then slammed into the front of the house next door. The force of the crash sent the door of her car careening three houses west, landing against another fence and narrowly missing a pedestrian.

Jolene was stuck in her car, injured, frightened and dazed.

"I saw my life pass before me," she told the Courier the next day. "I didn’t know what had happened."

Her neighbors did, though. The residents of the house into which her car crashed came running out on the small porch and, at the same time, other neighbors from across the street came running to the scene.

"The car started smoking," one said, "and we had to do something."

Jolene said there were "many" neighbors who helped get her out of the car before it might blow up, they feared.

"They carried me to my friend’s house across the street while EMS and the Fire Department were on their way," she said.

The emergency squads of police, EMS paramedics and Firefighters arrived almost simultaneously and tended to the victim, taking her to Brookdale Hospital.

Meanwhile, the other vehicle involved in the accident, a 1999 Volvo, was barely scratched and its occupants were not injured, except for trauma, according police.

Jolene’s injuries were also "scratches and bruises," she told the Courier the following day from her home.

"I don’t have any broken bones," she said, "at least none that I know of right now.

"I want to say thank you to everyone who was so helpful to me during this time, including the police and firemen and paramedics, but especially to my dear neighbors who came to my aid when I needed them."